Airborne car crashes into gas station sign in Douglassville

AMITY — A car that went airborne struck a sign outside the Hess gas station on Route 422 around 4 p.m. Tuesday, trapping two people inside.

The crash took down the large sign outside the gas station along Route 422 East and caused the highway to be shut down for 90 minutes while the occupants of the car were rescued.

Jason Beck, 42, of Kemp Road in North Coventry, was driving a white Ford Crown Victoria east on Route 422 when he fell asleep at the wheel, according to Amity police.

Police said the car went off the road, hit a culvert “and became airborne,” hitting and knocking down the Hess sign at the gas station, which is located between the eastbound and westbound lanes of the highway near Old Airport Road.

Police said the car flipped once after knocking down the sign and came to rest on its wheels, but at a steep angle on a hill there.

Although Beck claimed to be uninjured, the passenger in his car, Latasha Thomas, age and address unavailable, complained of being in severe pain, police said.

The fire companies that arrived had to secure the vehicle, because of the extreme angle of the car, and cut the roof off in order to extract Beck and Thomas.

Pottstown residents Yvonne Griffith Levan and her husband Dennis were stopped at the light at Old Airport Road when the accident occurred.

“We were right along beside them all the way from Reading,” said Dennis Levan, who with his wife, was returning from Blue Marsh Lake and some swimming to beat the heat.

“All of a sudden the car just drifted off the road and then, boom, it was up in the air and it hit that sign and it looked like it blew up,” he said. “I couldn’t help thinking what if we had still been alongside of him.”

“As quick as you snap your fingers, that vehicle was flying,” said Yvonne Levan. “It would have been even worse if someone was pulling out of that station onto 422.”

She said a child of about 9 or 10 years of age was in the back seat of the car, but appeared to be uninjured.

The rear window of the car was “blown out” and the front passenger seat “was half over onto the drivers side,” Yvonne Levan said.

“When we were alongside them, we could see that she was sleeping in the passenger seat,” she said. “Can you imagine? What a thing to wake up to.”

Route 422 eastbound was closed to traffic at Old Airport Road for about 90 minutes while the rescue was undertaken, police said.